R/A

R/A is performance collaboration between Ryan Wade Ruehlen and Adán De La Garza. Their primary source of interest lies in the format of the drum set through sonic research. The drum set serves as a perceptual and structural tool for studying and producing the "sounds of sociality," becoming a carrier of manipulated texts that connect and rupture between opposing forces, which signify humanity's root-method for sublimating violence. R/A incorporates live percussion, found sound, digital sampling, and constructed noise. They view the drum set as an open-ended inquiry. These inquiries include varying versions and situations that become both acoustic instruments and the transmitting intermediaries of audio feedback.

Drumset Situations: Strobe

4 minute video loop / 16 duets performed simultaneously producing a "strobe" effect, compounding and compressing both the auditory and visual elements into a fractured rhythm

Drumset Situations: Rotation

5 minute video loop / 5 duets synced up to create a simultaneous and disorienting audio-visual field. using a camera that maintains a constant state of motion, the video places the viewer inside the vertigo inducing situation of the two players imprinted on to each others' frames and performed compositions.

Drumset Situations: Rope

10 minute video loop / two performers are tied together at the ankles and wrists, impeding one another from being able to play the drumset while the other is playing. The composition oscillates between conflict/struggle and cooperation/exhaustion. harmonies rise and collapse throughout, highlighting the difficulty of composing anything "new" in an over-saturated media world.